Britain is to send an extra 600 troops to boost international peacekeeping forces in Kosovo to help secure the region during next week's Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections, the ministry of defence said on Sunday. The troops will stay in the troubled southern Yugoslav province for two months to cover all eventualities during the election period, in which Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is running for a second four-year term.
The UN administration in Kosovo has refused to help organise the Yugoslav polls, calling them a farce and a provocation, but the Belgrade regime has said Kosovo's Serbs will have the opportunity to cast their ballots. Polls show Milosevic trailing the Opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica by up to 18 percent a week ahead of the September 24 elections.
The UN has organised its own municipal elections to take place in Kosovo late October. Bureau Report